Legal Pad

A nasty fracas between former partners in a Boston accounting firm has ended up in court. Scott Kanter left Kanter Troy Orleans & Wexler in August to join Brown & Brown and took 10 staff members with him. The remaining partners merged with DiCicco, Gulman & Co. in October. Now Kanter is

charging that his former partners and DiCicco Gulman misappropriated more than $750,000. Kanter's complaint says he brought in more than twice the revenue of the next-biggest rainmaker at KTO&W and decided to leave because the other partners adopted a compensation system that wasn't tied to revenue. That decision should have dissolved the partnership, but instead, the remaining partners amended the firm's certificate of limited liability partnership "to usurp for themselves as many of the assets of KTOW as they could," Kanter says. He's asking the court to appoint a receiver to ensure the assets are accounted for, returned, and not absorbed by DiCicco Gulman. David Wexler, one of Kanter's former partners, says the remaining partners will file a defense and counterclaims. (Source: Boston Business Journal)

Milwaukee's Coleman & Williams filed a defamation suit against the secretary of the state Department of Workforce Development. The suit alleges that comments made to a Milwaukee newspaper by Roberta Gassman in February were false and caused the firm to lose business. She was quoted in the Milwaukee Sentinel saying the firm provided "extremely inaccurate information" in its audit of the Opportunities Industrialization Center of Greater Milwaukee. The Center closed in February after scandals uncovering financial kickbacks and other financial problems. C&W says it lost one client and may lose more because of Gassman's remarks. The firm's lawsuit claims that Gassman's remarks "were purposely discriminatory and racially motivated." C&W is a black-owned firm. The suit asks for an injunction prohibiting Gassman from making further comments about C&W and seeks unspecific monetary damages. (Source: Milwaukee Sentinel)

The Big Four continue to shell out big bucks to settle litigation. PricewaterhouseCoopers agreed to pay $19.2 million to settle part of a class action lawsuit filed by former officials of the now-defunct Safety-Kleen, based in Columbia, S.C. Earlier, the firm paid $24.5 million to resolve two similar suits stemming from the Safety-Kleen job. Ernst & Young settled a lawsuit in March that alleged the firm helped now-bankrupt Tower Air falsify financial reports. The amount wasn't disclosed, but creditors sought $412 million in damages. Both firms deny wrongdoing.